Culturas e cuidados: Abordar os desafios da saúde ocupacional na agricultura

The project's primary goal is to leverage developed technology to recognize hazards agricultural workers face. The project aims to devise innovative metrics, indicators, and policies to promote agricultural workers' safety and wellbeing. We want to bring science to agriculture, aspiring to gather the largest dataset of agricultural workers in the occupational health area to contribute to the tailored development of health and safety solutions for this population, which has been consistently neglected. Moreover, the project aligns with the EU-OSHA concerns [2], regarding new trends, technological and organizational changes in the sector and the implications for these workers' occupational safety and health. Our specific objectives are: 1. Use biomarkers such as HR, HRV, Respiration, actigraphy and core temperature to investigate agricultural psychophysiological levels of fatigue and stress and physiological levels of heat stress, and hydration. We will also include the monitoring of copeptin levels as an innovative measure for assessing hydration, combined with the above-mentioned biomarkers; 2. Assess workers' exposure to potential airborne workplace hazards - personal air sampling will be used to assess the concentration of respirable and inhalable-sized particles and hazardous volatile organic compounds VOCs (including pesticides) to which the workers are daily exposed; 3. Conduct an ergonomic assessment of agricultural workers using physiological indicators such as worker tilt, number of inclinations, tilting time, arm movement, scissor cuts (muscle activation), among others; 4. Investigate the interdependency between the multimodal data (obtained from obj1 + obj2 + obj3) performing a holistic data analysis for a better understanding of correlated factors that might be affecting agricultural workers' well-being and health. 5. Evaluate the added value and challenges associated with adopting technology in agricultural practices to comprehend workers ́ perceptions. This includes assessing technology's relevance, expectations, advantages, and potential applications in production and identifying barriers, using co-creation strategies, to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the role of technology in agriculture from the perspective of workers; 6. Promote the creation and adoption of occupational health policies and best practices in the agricultural sector to ensure the well-being, safety and improve overall productivity, using a comprehensive approach. This project approach is innovative and will focus on the individual by conducting a human-centric approach, combining the user experience for an enhanced design of the study outcomes. We will design the technological requirements using a co-creation process and include the creation of Living labs, that has been proved to be a visionary way to test this type of technology. This project relies on an interdisciplinary approach, capitalizing on the team's diverse expertise and extensive experience across various domains such as engineering, biomedical sciences, agronomy, agricultural engineering, psychophysiology, clinical health, occupational health, and ergonomics. The team's collective knowledge spans a broad spectrum, ensuring the acquisition of unique insights. With a proven track record in data collection across diverse occupational groups, including agricultural workers, the team possesses additional expertise and sensitivity to issues related to technology adoption.